Microsoft has introduced a brand new docking station for its newest Floor units geared up with Thunderbolt 4 ports. The Floor Thunderbolt 4 Dock has eight ports and offers a complete assortment of eight present USB Kind-C and legacy USB Kind-A connectors together with a 2.5GbE. One of many primary promoting factors of the dock is assist for enterprise-grade options. However, maybe most notably, the dock doesn’t have a Floor Join port.

Microsoft’s Surface Thunderbolt 4 Dock connects to a appropriate host that includes USB4/Thunderbolt 4 and comes with three 10 Gbps USB 3.1 Gen 2 Kind-A connectors and three 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 4/USB4-certified USB Kind-C ports which might be accompanied by 2.5GbE and a TRRS audio connector for headsets. The docking station can assist two 4Kp60 screens and numerous bandwidth hungry TB3/TB4/USB4 peripherals comparable to storage and eGFX exterior GPU bins.

Additionally, the unit has an inside energy provide that may feed its host as much as 96W of energy, which is sufficient to energy a high-end 15 or 16-inch laptop computer. But, it can not feed greater than 15W of energy over its USB-C ports, so its charging capabilities are fairly restricted.

Microsoft stresses that its Floor Thunderbolt 4 Dock is totally different from its earlier docks as it may be used with non-Floor USB-C units, together with Home windows OEM units and Apple Macs. As a part of this compatibility, the dock lacks the corporate’s proprietary Floor Join port, which has been a mainstay of Microsoft Floor units up till now – for higher and for worse. Dropping the proprietary port makes it incompatible with older Floor units that solely have a Floor Join port, such because the Microsoft Floor E-book 2 and the Floor Professional 5, however trying on the greater image, Microsoft’s launch of a dock that lacks its personal proprietary port could point out that the corporate is (lastly) dropping it fully in favor of the extra ubiquitous Thunderbolt 4/USB4 connector.

With its six ports, an audio connector, and a 2.5GbE port, the Microsoft Floor Thunderbolt 4 Dock considerably falls brief from being an final docking station (comparable to 13-in-1 and 14-in-1 docks from OWC). But, it appears to be like like its key promoting level will not be precisely the variety of connectors, however reasonably assist for enterprise-grade options, making it a complete selection for industrial clients shopping for Microsoft Floor or different Home windows-based units.

Specifically, the Floor Thunderbolt 4 Dock affords Firmware Replace through Home windows Replace, Wake on LAN from Fashionable Standby, and MAC Tackle Go-By way of‎. Moreover, the Floor Enterprise Administration Mode (SEMM) permits for straightforward disabling of the dock ports in mission-critical environments and limits performance to particular units‎ (e.g., one can plug in a monitor, a keyboard or a webcam, however can not use a USB drive).

Microsoft’s Floor Thunderbolt 4 Dock shall be obtainable shortly straight from Microsoft in addition to from its resellers for $299.